An important step in preparing large quantities of fruits and/or vegetables for sale is to thoroughly wash the product in order to remove dirt and/or insecticides. After washing, the fruits and/or vegetables are dried as remaining water may provide an environment for bacteria to grow and spoil the product. Leafy vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage and spinach are especially susceptible to spoilage if not adequately dried. These products are much more difficult to dry than products such as apples, peaches or pears because of the larger irregular surface area per unit volume of the leafy vegetable where water can be trapped.
In order to dry leafy vegetables, conventional spin dryer systems may be used. Known dryer systems may include a dryer barrel basket into which the produce is loaded at a loading station. After spin drying, the dryer barrel basket is lifted out of the dryer and transported by a conveyor hoist to an unloading area. The bottom of the dryer barrel basket is then opened to empty the contents out of the dryer barrel basket. This is typically accomplished by opening a two section trap door on the bottom of the dryer barrel basket.
These two section trap door double bottom doors generally form two halves of the circular shaped bottom of the dryer barrel split down the middle. Thus, these doors generally swing closed towards the middle of the dryer barrel. During closing, this setup generally requires an operator to hold a first door closed with one hand while swinging the second door upwards with the other hand with sufficient force to lock the doors in place. This arrangement is not an optimal, nor does it result in an efficient process. It would be advantageous to have a system and/or apparatus with a design configured for more convenient use.
Also, emptying these conventional baskets presents challenges. Traditionally, doors of some known dryer barrel baskets have a handle to open the doors on the bottom of the basket located on the bottom of the dryer barrel basket, generally collocated on and/or near the swinging doors. Thus, the operator is often required to reach under the dryer barrel basket to access the handle and release a lock securing the door to the dryer barrel basket. It would be advantageous to have a system and/or apparatus with a more efficient design.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.